There’s a popular idea that we should all have a bucket list—a running tally of things to do before we die. Skydive. See the Grand Canyon. Run a marathon. Eat gelato in Italy.

I don’t have anything against those lists. In fact, some days a plane ticket and a passport sound like very holy things.

Over the last few years, through ministry, motherhood, adoption, and especially through grief—I’ve found myself less interested in a list of things to do before I die and more drawn to a list of ways I want to live while I’m still here.

Not just any list. A reversed bucket list. Why “Reversed”? The word revered means something honored, cherished, held with deep respect.

I’ve walked with people at hospital bedsides, gravesides, and kitchen tables covered in tissues and coffee mugs. I’ve listened to the things they wish they’d done differently, and the things they’re so grateful they did.

Over and over, I’ve noticed:
What we most regret at the end is rarely “I never saw Paris.”
It’s “I never said I’m sorry.”
“I never slowed down long enough to enjoy my kids.”
“I never let myself rest.”
“I never told them how much I loved them.”

So my “reversed bucket list” isn’t about collecting experiences to impress anyone. It’s about cultivating a life that, when I look back on it—whether that’s next year or decades from now—I can say:
I honored what mattered most. I loved well. I paid attention. I didn’t waste the pain. What Is a Reversed Bucket List? For me, a revered bucket list is:

• Less about achievement, more about alignment
• Less about spectacle, more about substance
• Less about “how much can I squeeze in,” more about “what am I being called to live out?”

It’s a list of:

• Practices I want to grow into
• Relationships I want to tend
• Risks I feel nudged to take
• Ways I want to honor my body, my calling, my grief, and my God

Some of the items are small and ordinary. Some are big and a little terrifying. Some are tender and rooted in loss. All of them, I hope, are grounded in reverence—for God, for this one wild and precious life, and for the people I’ve loved and lost along the way (including my son, Nickolas).How grief shaped This list. I can’t talk about a revered bucket list without talking about grief.

When you’ve stood in the delivery room and held a baby you don’t get to bring home…
When you’ve sat with families who are planning funerals instead of first birthdays…
When you’ve listened to the quiet “I thought we’d have more time” whispered in countless hospital rooms…
You start to see time differently.
Grief has a way of stripping life down to the essentials. It asks hard questions:

• What actually matters?
• What am I postponing because I’m afraid?
• What am I clinging to that doesn’t give life anymore?
• Where am I refusing joy because I’m afraid it will hurt again?

My reversed bucket list grew out of those questions. It’s my way of saying:
I don’t want to wait until the end to start living the life I’m meant to live. I want to practice it now, in the middle of laundry and sermons, late-night worries and all the messy, ordinary, holy things. What you can expect from this series. This post is the beginning of a new series where I’ll be sharing pieces of my reversed bucket list—one entry at a time.

Some of the things you’ll see on it:

• Commitments to rest and Sabbath (even when my to-do list screams otherwise)
• Ways I want to show up more honestly in my relationships
• Creative risks I’ve been quietly avoiding (hello, books and wild ideas)
• Practices for honoring grief and making space for joy at the same time
• Acts of courage that feel small on the outside but huge on the inside

For each item, I’ll share:

• Why it’s on the list
• Where it came from (often a story from ministry, motherhood, or grief)
• How I’m actually trying to live it out in real life—not in some Pinterest-perfect fantasy

My hope is not that you’ll copy my list, but that you’ll feel invited to consider your own. You may already have a bucket list taped inside a journal or tucked in a notes app somewhere. Or maybe you’ve never written one because life has felt too heavy, too busy, or too uncertain.

Wherever you are, I want to invite you into a gentle question:

If you treated your life as something sacred and worthy of reverence, what would belong on your list?

Not the list you think you’re supposed to have.

Not the list that would look impressive on social media.

The list that would make you exhale and say, “Yes. That. That’s the life I want to live.”

In the weeks ahead, I’ll be opening up my own list—messy, unfinished, and in progress. I’ll be honest about where I’m still learning (spoiler: that’s most of it). And I’ll be cheering you on as you name what matters most in your own story.

At the end of the day, I don’t just want to die having checked off a list of activities. I want to live having honored a list of values, relationships, and holy callings.

That, for me, is what makes this a reversed bucket list.
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Stay tuned—next time I’ll share the very first item on my list and the story behind it.

The Question about the Resurrection

27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32 Finally, the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”
34 Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37 And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”
(Luke 20:27-38)

God of the Living

Sometimes, Jesus got pulled into arguments that weren’t really about faith at all—they were about winning.
A group called the Sadducees, who didn’t believe in life after death, tried to stump him with a tricky question. They told a story about a woman who married seven brothers, one after another, because each one died before having children. Then they asked Jesus, “When everyone is raised from the dead, whose wife will she be?”

They weren’t asking because they cared. They wanted to prove that the idea of resurrection—of life beyond this one—was nonsense.

Jesus didn’t play their game. He lifted the conversation to a higher place. He said, “People in this life marry and are given in marriage, but in the life to come, it’s different. They don’t die anymore. They are like angels and are children of God.”

In other words: You’re asking the wrong question.

The question isn’t “Who belongs to who in heaven?”

The real question is, “What kind of life is God giving us right now?”

The Sadducees’ story treated the woman like a thing being passed around, not a person with her own worth. They missed the heart of God entirely.

Truthfully, we can make the same mistake. We get caught up in being right, in proving our point, in trying to make life or faith make sense on paper. But faith isn’t meant to be tidy—it’s meant to be lived.

Jesus reminds us that resurrection—the idea that life and love don’t end with death—isn’t something to argue about. It’s something to experience. It’s the power of God’s love that refuses to let darkness have the last word.

When Jesus calls us “children of the resurrection,” he’s talking about more than life after death. He’s talking about hope that rises now.

I think about parents who have buried a child and somehow learn to love again.
Or someone who climbs out of addiction.
Or a couple who rebuilds trust after betrayal.
Or an older person who finds new purpose after loss.

That’s resurrection in real time. It’s what happens when life insists on showing up again, even after everything seems broken.
We are not defined by our endings—but by the new beginnings that keep surprising us.

Then Jesus brings it all home. He reminds the crowd of the story of Moses and the burning bush. God said to Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Jesus points out that God didn’t say I was their God—He said I am.

To God, they are still alive. Abraham still dreams. Sarah still laughs. Isaac still stumbles forward in faith. Jacob still wrestles with God. Their stories aren’t finished. And neither is yours.

When you pray, you’re talking to the same God who spoke from that burning bush, who freed people from slavery, who raised Jesus from the dead. That same God is not done with you.

Believing in resurrection isn’t about religion or memorizing verses—it’s about living like love wins. It’s waking up every day and choosing hope over fear.

When you forgive someone instead of getting even, that’s resurrection.
When you show up for someone who can’t give anything back, that’s resurrection.
When you hold on to hope after bad news, that’s resurrection too.
This story isn’t really about heaven at all. Maybe it’s about learning to see life differently, right here.

God is truly the God of the living, then every breath, every act of kindness, every bit of courage matters. Death might make noise—but it doesn’t get the final say.
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So keep living like it’s true. Because it is.

As a pastor, I'm often asked about sacred spaces—what makes a place holy, and why do we need them? After eight years in ministry and a lifetime of seeking God in unexpected places, I've come to understand that sacred space is far more than stained glass and steeples.

When most people think of sacred space, they picture a church sanctuary. Yes, those spaces are sacred. The light filtering through colored glass, the worn wood of pews that have held generations of prayers, the altar where countless lives have been transformed—these places hold power.

Sacred space isn't confined to buildings with crosses on top.

A sacred space is anywhere the veil between heaven and earth grows thin. It's any place where we encounter the divine, where we feel God's presence so tangibly that our breath catches and our hearts open.

I've experienced sacred space in a hospital room where a family said goodbye to their newborn. I've found it in my garden, hands deep in soil, watching new life push through the earth. I've stumbled into it on a hiking trail, surrounded by trees that have been praising their Creator longer than I've been alive.

Sacred space happens wherever we make room for God.

Here's what I've learned: we don't just find sacred spaces—we create them. We consecrate the ordinary by bringing our whole selves, our honest prayers, and our open hearts.

Sacred space requires:

• Intention - We must choose to be present, to set aside distractions and show up fully
• Honesty - God meets us in our truth, not our pretense
• Openness - We must be willing to encounter God, even when it's uncomfortable
• Reverence - A recognition that we're standing on holy ground

You can create sacred space at your kitchen table during morning coffee with God. You can find it in your car during your commute, turning off the radio and turning toward prayer. You can establish it in a corner of your bedroom with a candle, a Bible, and a willing heart.

In my work with bereaved families, I've witnessed how grief transforms ordinary places into sacred ground. The spot where you scattered ashes. The bench where you sat with your loved one. The nursery that never held your baby.

These places hold our stories, our tears, our love. They become thin places where we encounter both our deepest pain and God's deepest comfort. They are sacred not because they're happy, but because they're true.

Perhaps the most overlooked sacred space is the one we carry with us always—our own bodies. As temples of the Holy Spirit, we are walking sanctuaries. Your heartbeat is a prayer. Your breath is worship. Your body, with all its scars and stories, is holy ground.

When we honor our bodies through rest, nourishment, and care, we're tending sacred space. When we allow ourselves to feel our feelings—even the hard ones—we're making room for God to dwell.

So where is your sacred space? Where do you meet God most fully?

Maybe it's in a church pew, and that's beautiful. Maybe it's on a hiking trail, in your garden, or in the quiet moments before dawn. Maybe it's in the midst of your grief, where God meets you in your breaking.

Wherever it is, I encourage you to protect it. Return to it. Let it shape you.

We all need places where we can shed our armor, speak our truth, and remember who we are and Whose we are. We need spaces where the sacred breaks through the ordinary and reminds us that we are never, ever alone.

May you find sacred space today. May you recognize the holy in the ordinary. May you know that wherever you are, whatever you're carrying, you can create a sanctuary simply by opening your heart to the One who is always, already there.